


The Beating of your Heart is the Only Sound

by EmJayAnders



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Carmilla - All Media Types, Carmilla - J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5075698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmJayAnders/pseuds/EmJayAnders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hollstein in a thunderstorm, guess which of them is scared</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beating of your Heart is the Only Sound

Laura Hollis sat happily at her desk working on her English Lit paper that- surprise, surprise- she had left to complete only hours before it was due. Her incoherent mutterings were the only sound that filled the room along with the occasional creak of her chair as she leant back in it to stretch or ponder her next sentence. She had been working solidly for the past few hours and the words were flowing from her mind, into her fingers and across the keys. The silence that she had been previously enjoying however was shattered by a yelp that escaped her mouth as the lights in the room cut out and her computer’s screen blinked out of existence…along with her unsaved Lit paper. “No, no, no…that was three hours of work!” The blonde groaned before slamming her head down onto the desk in front of her “Ow…” She muttered as a throbbing pain spread across her forehead at the contact.   
A flash of light in her peripheral vision caused her head to snap back up from its position on the wood top; she expected to see the lights turning back on and her computer flashing back into life but instead the room remained dark. “What the-” A loud crash of thunder stopped her sentence dead in her tracks. “Well that explains the lights.” Laura sighed and rolled back in her desk chair towards the small kitchen like area at the back of the room. She stood and began searching in the draws for matches- Carmilla being the pyromaniac she was had an alarmingly small quantity, then again when you could set fire to things with only your mind matches seemed kind of useless. It took Laura longer than she’d care to admit to light the many candles Carmilla owned and distribute them around the room. Another flash filtered through the drapes of Laura’s window followed by a rumble of thunder which seemed to sound closer than the last. The blonde was just about to settle herself into her bed with a book and a torch (provided by her father for occasions such as this) when the door flung open, almost flying off its hinges and effectively extinguishing all of the candles Laura had worked so hard to light. “Carm seriously? I just lit those!” She sighed in exasperation at her girlfriend who didn’t seem to have moved from her spot in the doorway. “Sounds like it’s really coming down out there.” She remarked, having calmed slightly from her initial annoyance of the extinguished candles. Another bright flash of lightning filled the room with a brief amount of light which allowed Laura to see Carmilla rush under the covers of her own bed. “Carm?”  
“I’ll light the damn candles okay?” The vampire growled and true to her word the candles all flickered back into life casting a warm, orange glow around the room. This permitted Laura to see that Carmilla was in fact curled up in the foetal position under her sheets, firmly facing the wall.  
“Carmilla?”  
“I lit the candles!” She snapped, lights flickering in response.  
“Are you okay?” Laura took a tentative step forward, moving to place her hand on Carmilla’s shoulder before thinking better of it “Did…did something happen?” She tried to lean over her and see her face but to no avail- it was too dark.   
The rain pounded on the window sill outside like the gunshots of a firing squad. Once more a bolt filled the room with light for a split second but that was all Laura needed to see Carmilla stiffen. Her eyebrows furrowed for a moment before everything clicked together in her head and her eyes widened in response. A small smile played at her lips and she took the risk to sit herself down on Carmilla’s bed, her hand wormed its way round to where the vampire’s lay clenched in front of her face. It took a moment of gentle caresses of Laura’s thumb before Carmilla’s hand relaxed and she let their fingers lace together. “Carm are you…scared of storms?”  
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The brunette snapped although her grip on Laura’s hand tightened “I’m a vampire, how could I be scared of-” Thunder rumbled throughout the campus and a yelp escaped Carmilla’s lips, cutting off her sentence.  
“Everyone’s scared of something.” Laura said with a seriousness that Carmilla had never heard before “Doesn’t matter if its spiders, heights, storms or if people think it’s irrational- it scares you, no matter what anyone else says.” A silence stretched between the two women, only the incessant gun shots of water outside making any noise. After a while Laura finally spoke again. “I used to be scared of storms too.” Was her remark “Then my mom explained them to me.” Laura rarely spoke of her mother, in fact she never spoke of her, and so despite the vampire’s terror she turned to face her girlfriend and listened with the upmost of attention. “A thunderstorm’s produced by a special type of cloud but really all you need to make a hell of a storm like this one is moisture in the air, for that air to be unstable and for something called ‘lift’. Then you’ve got yourself a thunderstorm.” The blonde chuckled without any slither of humour in her tone.   
Carmilla’s grip on Laura’s hand tightened and she tugged on her arm, silently beckoning her to join her under the covers. The two readjusted their positions and those of the bed sheets before Laura lay down and snuggled into her girlfriends cold form- the temperature had originally bothered her but now she loved the sensation of her warm skin pressing against her girlfriend’s. Carmilla nuzzled into Laura’s neck, breathing in the scent of her shampoo and listening to the steady thrum of Laura’s pulse. Her breath ghosted against Laura’s neck and the blonde shivered involuntarily causing Carmilla to tighten her hold around her. They lay like that for a long time, the vampire occasionally stiffening with an especially loud crash of thunder or close flash of lightning.   
“Laura?” The blonde hummed a response. “If everyone’s scared of something what are you scared of?”  
“Death.” She replied without a single second of delay. Carmilla looked up at Laura’s face to try and gauge the expression there but it was passive, disaffected- the expression Carmilla herself usually wore. The brunette wasn’t scared of much but in that moment she was scared of what Laura had seen. What thing could cause the happy, excitable, curious young woman she held desperately onto to look the way she did in that moment? The answer was provided for her not a moment later. “I watched my mom die.”  
“Laura?”  
“She erm…we were driving home after a book festival I’d begged her to take me to, it was dark, raining- a storm just like this one actually and I was scared. That’s when she explained to me what a storm was and how I shouldn’t be scared of them but…she leant across to kiss me on the forehead and that when the car spun. Slippery road you know?” Carmilla lay in silence, attention rapt to her girlfriend’s story. “She couldn’t turn the car back around in time and a truck ploughed into the driver’s side. Whoever it was in the truck drove off without so much as a second of consideration. My left leg was trapped under the buckled dashboard so I couldn’t get out, my head was bleeding too but I could see her; I was looking directly at her.” Her voice wavered now, the floodgates were about to open but she paused, composed herself and continued- Carmilla could feel her unbeating heart breaking “She talked to me right until the end you know? She er…she kept reassuring me it was all going to be okay, that the police would find us and we would go home and have cocoa. After 30 minutes I think she realised she wasn’t going to make it cause suddenly it wasn’t how we were gonna make it, it was how I was gonna be alright, how the police would find me…how much she loved me.” Laura’s voice cracked “I watched the light leave her eyes not long after that but it was another hour before my dad found me and called the ambulance. I’ve never felt terror like that night ever again, well until I thought you were dead.” Carmilla laced her fingers with Laura’s again and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips, she knew it wasn’t enough to save her from the memories, from the fear but it was all Carmilla could give.  
“Carm?”  
“Yes?”  
“Never leave me.” Laura whispered, her eyes shining in the flickering candlelight.  
“Never, Cupcake.”


End file.
